Monday, March 19, 2007

Kitchen disaster

I don't have a lot of time to cook, but when I do, I'm pretty good at it. I'm not a gourmet chef by any stretch of the imagination -- since, on the most part, I'm too lazy to try all that hard, and I'm not particularly experimental about it -- but I'm pretty okay. I tend to cook on Sundays, and I generally limit it to things that (1) I know that I like to eat;* (2) don't make a tremendous mess; and (3) reheat pretty well for later in the week.

For example, yesterday I made poached salmon in white wine with whole wheat cheese tortellini. It yielded three portions, so I put two away in the fridge, in those nifty little square Gladware containers.

This evening, I came home from work and went to go reheat one of the portions. One minute in, it exploded all over my microwave.

Flakes of Salmon.

All. Over. The. Microwave.

So, being a tough and resilient -- and hungry -- girl, I decided to try again with the second portion. First, I cleaned the microwave using those handy-dandy little Clorox antibacterial kitchen wipes. Then I put the container in the microwave for round two. I shortened the time, reduced the heat setting, placed the cover ever-so-gently on top of the container at an angle so as to give it room to vent.

Everything seemed to be going so well. I was standing there, watching the timer count down -- 5, 4, 3, 2 . . . and then it exploded again. All over the microwave, take two.

Ultimately, I managed to rescue most of the tortellini, and ate them for dinner. Every once in a while, I'd find a small chunk of salmon.

Paige: In my younger days, I would probably chuck the microwave, but alas, it came with the apartment. Lucky for me, my cleaning lady comes on Friday.

There is also a really gross epilogue to the story: When I went to go to clean my face before bed last night, I found that I had several small pieces of salmon in my hair. This might keep me from cooking for at least a month.

I think that's true. You quickly sear it in a frying pan with butter to lock in the juices and then you broil it or grill it or whatever. Still, it's hard to get it just right, so I'm willing to pay the professionals to do it well rather than ruining a good cut of steak at home.